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Thursday, May 24, 2018

The letter from Donald Trump to Kim Jong-Un, which cancels
the leaders’ proposed summit in Singapore, will certainly go down in the political
annals.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that commentators will
remember it as a prelude to some catastrophic conflict on the Korean peninsula.
If we’re honest, it may signal the end of a brief window, early in 2018, when people
naively thought that war might be averted.

I sincerely hope it doesn’t have such grave historic
significance.

But as a copywriter, I can weep a thousand tears without a
single shot being fired in anger.What’s extraordinary about the text is that it’s clear
Trump actually played a major part in
writing it. We can tell because it is so atrociously and bizarrely
constructed.

There can be few jurisdictions in the modern world where
Presidents and Prime Ministers still draft their own correspondence. And if
your President was one Donald J Trump, you’d sure as hell keep him the f***
away from Microsoft Word. I mean Twitter’s bad enough.

The guy can’t even get the left-hand justification right in
the address at the top.

If only he could afford a secretary. I’m sure Vladimir
Putin would happily supply some candidates.

Anyway, there are two fundamental levels of critique that I
would offer in relation to this bizarre letter.

The first would be about the weird oscillation between
fawning praise for the tubby Korean dictator and vehement criticism.

The letter starts by generously congratulating Kim for the ‘time,
patience and effort’ that he’s put into negotiations.

Within a couple of sentences, Trump is denouncing him for
the ‘tremendous anger and open hostility’ of his recent statements.

In the next paragraph, the 45th US President is
waxing sentimentally about the ‘wonderful dialogue’ that had been built up with
his North Korean counterpart and the ‘beautiful gesture’ of releasing hostages.
But this comes after Trump has prayed that he’d never have to use his ‘massive
and powerful’ nuclear arsenal on his erstwhile pal in Pyongyang.

The letter from Washington reveals a love-hate
relationship. It veers faster than one of Kim’s rockets between the
nauseatingly sycophantic and obsequious through to the downright deranged.

My second concern is over just how badly written it is.

That second sentence.

‘We
were informed that the meeting was requested by North Korea, but that to us is
totally irrelevant.’

Eh?

What the hell is he talking about?

That sentence is totally irrelevant, Donald.

‘Therefore,
please let this letter serve to represent, that the Singapore summit, for the
good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place.’

Let’s leave aside the fact that the construction of this
sentence is both pathetically grandiose and clumsy as hell. How can something which
is to the detriment of the whole world be to the benefit of the US and North
Korea?

‘If
you do change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do
not hesitate to call me or write.’

WTAF?

I’m going to let the ‘change-your-mind-having-to-do-with’
stuff wash over me, as I don’t want to up my blood pressure meds.

But Trump is
cancelling the meeting, not Kim. So what exactly is Kim supposed to be changing
his mind about?

The casual tone of this sign-off paragraph gives the
impression that an old buddy has cried off on a golfing tournament. Trump is a
bit annoyed that his mate now claims to be too busy for 18 holes at Mar-a-Lago.
But he’s magnanimous about it.

‘Ok, well if you change your mind, give me a call…’

Perhaps Kim will drop a message in the deranged dictators’
group chat in the next day or two?

Sunday, March 11, 2018

There is
something so bizarrely British about the health response to the assassination
attempt in Salisbury on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. A
week after the event, everyone who was in the vicinity of the deadly nerve
agent has been urged to wash their personal possessions.

Now, let’s
think this through.

This
chemical was so toxic that it left two people fighting for their lives. A
police officer involved in the early response was also hospitalised and made
severely ill by it. The table in the restaurant visited by Sergei and Julia was
reportedly so contaminated that it had to be destroyed.

But if you
happened to be nearby – perhaps even dining in the same part of the restaurant
sometime after the unfortunate victims departed – no need to worry.

Run a baby wipe over your phone.

A week
later.

What about
clothes? The Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies recommends washing them. In a
washing machine preferably, she says. Err… as opposed to the old-fashioned
handwash and mangle still favoured by the backward denizens of this sleepy cathedral
town?

Dry clean
only? No problem. Just stick a couple of layers of plastic around the clothes
and await further instructions.

It’s astonishing to contrast the military personnel in
biohazard suits wandering around Salisbury with the barmy and utterly useless
advice being given to members of the general public. But it sums up the whole
weird relationship of the NHS to pathogens, toxins and other deadly threats.

The British response is always not to worry.

A touch of Ebola? I remember my local surgery advising
patients who thought they might have been affected while travelling overseas to
inform the staff at reception and get them to call some helpline on their behalf.
And try to avoid touching anything.

It’s hard to imagine that conversation, isn’t it? Someone
arrives saying that she’s the nurse who caught Ebola recently and has been all
over the news, but she’s told her current condition is probably nothing to
worry about. A bit of bed rest and paracetamol and she’ll be fine in a day or
two.

To some, this extraordinarily British approach to medical
matters is perhaps one of the things that gives the UK its endearing charm. But
I suspect it’s small comfort to restaurant-goers in Salisbury.

Friday, March 03, 2017

At one
level, the woman on BBC Question Time who expressed concerns about who was
going to make her post-Brexit coffee at Pret was rather silly. She should have
realised that her comment was going to paint her as a pampered and affluent
London Remoaner.

It’s an easy
trap to fall into.

I remember
being in the audience 25 years ago for one of those terrible daytime TV
discussion shows – Kilroy or The Time The Place or similar – and we were
discussing childcare. Some lady started prattling on about nannies and I had to
remind her that this wasn’t actually most people’s experience of childcare
arrangements.

So the message
is clear: think before you open your mouth.

On the other
hand, you can’t help feeling the Pret lady had a pretty valid point.

Virtually no
one, as far as I can tell, who works in frontline hospitality in London comes
from the UK. Many will be citizens of other EU countries and have the name
badges with the flags to prove it. These are indeed the people who serve us
coffees and sandwiches, wait at tables in restaurants and staff the reception
desks in hotels.

So at an economic
and practical level, she is right on the money. And that money is probably
Euros rather than pounds sterling.

But the
reaction to her comments also revealed something about the Brexit divide in the
UK. It’s not just about class and age and location, although all those factors
are important. It’s about attitude.

Remainers go
to Pret to get their snacks and caffeine fix. Brexiters believe in packed
lunches and Swiss Nescafé. And I would stress this is not
necessarily because they are poorer. I mean even the wealthier, middle-class
Brexiters would eschew a lot of the modern coffee shops and sandwich bars.

They would say
they were too expensive and a waste of money, but they’d happily pay for
membership of their local golf club or have a splurge at the DIY store at the
weekend. They’d shell out hundreds a month so that they could have a better car
than their neighbours.

Middle-class
Brexiters have a different attitude to life. They have different priorities. If
they had money, they wouldn’t spend it on exotic-sounding coffees in fashionable
parts of London or care about the people who served them. They’d put the money
away for that cruise they had their eye on.

Before the
referendum, I remember having an argument with an older Leave supporter, who
lives in an affluent middle-class London suburb. I told him that I had applied
for an Irish passport to retain my right to live and work in Europe. His blank
expression told me that he couldn’t understand why anyone would want such a
right.

Sunday, November 06, 2016

If you were a retail store, how fussy would you be about who worked as an assistant on the shop floor?

I reckon you're entitled to be choosy. After all, you probably have quite a few applicants. And these people are going to be ambassadors for your business and have direct contact with your customers.

So would you be interested in a personable young woman, who's just started in the Sixth Form and is looking for a Saturday job? Someone who got eight A*s at GCSE, is currently studying for A-Levels and is bright and ambitious? A person who has already gained shop experience on a voluntary basis with a charity and has direct experience of retail customer service?

Given that she'd be working for minimum wage, I'd say this was a pretty good deal, wouldn't you?

But when one of my daughters recently applied for a part-time role advertised at Boots, she couldn't even get an interview. Why? She was rejected on the basis of bizarre online tests.

The first set of questions were built around particular scenarios in store and how someone might react. The way my daughter describes them, the multiple-choice answers were often weird and pre-supposed some kind of knowledge of the protocols of the store. Whether you would leave a till, for instance, in order to help a customer find something they needed. Or whether you would call across the store to colleagues in other situations.

It seems to me that in the abstract, there are no 'right' or 'wrong' answers in situations such as this. It might depend on a variety of factors: the agreed policies of the shop; the number of people employed; the number of customers in the store at the time; and the proximity of the things shoppers are looking for.

And then there were a load of the psychometric-style questions beloved of HR people and headshrinks. You know the kind of thing. 'Which of these statements best describes you?'

Usually these tests result in some kind of blanket profile, such as 'resistant to change' or 'eager to please others'. Maybe there's something in this type of test if an applicant is about to embark on a graduate career at multinational bank or local council, but - forgive me - they are entirely irrelevant when your job is telling people they can get a free packet of crisps as part of a Meal Deal.

Apparently, my daughter cannot reapply to Boots within the next year. She tells me that she wouldn't bother anyway. More interestingly, she tells me that she might not shop there any more. Which I would argue is food for thought for the Marketing Department as well as Personnel.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

The decision by Transport for London to encourage people to talk to each other on the tube has met with understandable derision from citizens of the Smoke.

The first rule of the UK capital - and the very glue that holds together its social fabric - is that no one makes conversation. Or eye contact preferably.

If you are feeling remotely tempted to wear one of the new badges that signals your willingness to engage in idle banter ('Baby, I'm Bored'), here are some suggestions to help suppress your urges. It's a process a Hampstead psychotherapist would call sublimation and it can come in very useful.

1.
Isn't there another level of Candy Crush you could aim for?

2.
If that's not your type of crush, go back and and re-read Rush Hour Crush in the Metro.

3.
See if you can find a mouse on the platform or tracks. Hold a conversation with them instead.

4.
Ostentatiously do your make-up - a process which can often last quite happily from Theydon Bois to Liverpool Street.

5.
Recite to yourself all the stops on the District Line between Turnham Green and Plaistow.

6.
Practise making general announcements to the carriage about the train being held in the station to regulate the service.

7.
Dial one of your Skype contacts at random using the subterranean wifi network and explain that no one in the carriage is interested in talking to you.

8.
Close your eyes and indulge in a little meditation. We'll wake you up at Morden.

9.
Take physical exercise by swinging on the straps and handrails in the carriage. People will ignore you and carry on playing Candy Crush.

10.
Pull the emergency cord and talk to the British Transport Police at the next stop.

If all else fails, get yourself as far North as possible. Talking there is perfectly acceptable. But I'm talking way beyond Colindale.

Sunday, September 04, 2016

Mother Teresa
of Calcutta is in the news at the moment, as she’s been elevated by the Vatican
to sainthood.

I admit that
I’m not fully up to speed with the criteria for canonisation, so I’ve visited
the Saints for Dummies web page to check whether Jeremy Corbyn also qualifies. (It’s
written by a couple of priests, so it must be kosher.)

My mission
has been prompted by the way in which some of Jez’s loyal supporters talk about
him online.

Take this
example, for instance, of someone writing to the bizarre Corbynista blog Vox Political and comparing the
Islington North MP to the author J K Rowling. The Harry Potter author is noted
as having the ‘Judas Trait’ about her, which stands in stark contrast to the
Labour Leader.

The
correspondent notes that Mr Corbyn is a man ‘who did not let fame go to his
head and instead, rather than paying lip service to human suffering, was
actually willing to do something to alleviate it’.

It’s
certainly a touching portrait of an individual prepared to go the extra mile. To me, it has a saintly quality about it, as
God knows I wouldn’t be able to aspire to these standards.

But is it
enough for actual, proper canonisation? That’s a whole other question and we’ll
come back to it in just a bit.

First, I
want travel to Ramsgate in Kent, a place where Jez has apparently just received
a rapturous welcome.

Very
confusing.

Was it
ram-packed, like traingate? Or was it... err... just Ramsgate?

Anyway, the
rally was advertised under the visionary slogan, ‘Another Thanet is possible’.
And as the veteran socialist has lived on another Thanet for the past 40 years,
that seemed strangely appropriate.

Commenting
on the event, one of Jez’s fans on Facebook described him as ‘inspirational’
and she also told us that the sun came out while he spoke. I wasn’t sure whether there might be some
causal connection between the two phenomena. If so, it’s the kind of thing that
I reckon a Papal team of enquiry might take into account.

And what
about musical tributes? My thinking is that before you become a saint, you’d
have people singing your praises. Literally.

There’s
plenty of evidence that people do feel strongly enough about Jeremy to burst
into song. Some are worthy individual efforts.

In the
spirit of communality and camaraderie engendered by Jez, however, the Unison
branch of Barnet in north London has created a touching collective foot-tapper– presumably with the blessing of The Specials.

But enough
of my homespun speculation. I am no theologian, after all.

Rev John
Tregilio Jr and Rev Kenneth Brighenti are the experts. And they tell us that
the first thing to bear in mind, when considering whether someone is eligible
for sainthood, is that they don’t have to be ‘sinless’. That’s impossible
apparently.

Good news
for Jez, as it means that all that stuff about the IRA and Hamas and Hezbollah
and so on can be set to one side.

Corbyn is
also on strong ground – judging by the testimony of his supporters – for
another of the Reverend Fathers’ criteria: ‘evidence of having led an exemplary
life of goodness and virtue worthy of imitation’. Things are looking up.

Here’s an
interesting one. You can be considered for sainthood if you have ‘undergone a
major conversion of heart where a previous immoral life is abandoned and
replaced by one of outstanding holiness’.

Hmm. Well, Jez did have a major change of heart on
the EU.

He supported
it 0 out of 10 in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. But he’d got up to 7 out
of 10 during the 2016 Brexit referendum. Does that count?

Fundamentally,
however, it seems to come down to miracles. You need a couple of them.

His victory
in the 2015 Labour leadership contest was obviously the first, which qualifies
him for potential beatification. He
needs another though.

If he
performed the same trick twice, would that be seen as cheating?

Regrettably,
we are confronted with what seems to be an insurmountable obstacle.

The miracles
are judged post-mortem.

In other
words, it’s simply not possible to be elevated to sainthood while you’re still
alive and kicking. The fact that your political philosophy may have died in,
say, 1986 doesn’t count. You have to physically brown bread yourself.

So those who
hope for Saint Jeremy to be recognised may have to wait until long after his
second term in office, which would finish in 2030. Then, at the age of 81, he’d
possibly have another 15 years of blissful retirement on his allotment, while
John McDonnell took over.